


The 'Oracle'

by ImhereImQuire



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Gen, Light-Hearted, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 05:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImhereImQuire/pseuds/ImhereImQuire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armand seeks Lestat's advice on navigating his relationship with an increasingly estranged fledgling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 'Oracle'

_Given a long enough time line, everyone’s survival rate drops to zero._ It was an interesting observation which could also be applied to relationships. Until death do us part was such a mortal idea. How many people could truly promise an eternity to another? Armand was wholly convinced that most of the couples who lived out a mortal lifespan only managed to due to fading beauty and ailing health. They wanted a companion to remember a time when they were beautiful, and to look after them when they were frail. A vampire’s beauty didn’t fade, and an immortal had no need of someone to hold their hand when they died.

To many the idea of approaching Louis and Lestat for advice on how to retain a lover would have been absurd, but the truth was that what they had was near unheard of amongst their kind. They had a passion for one another which had survived two centuries. Armand was in awe, truth be told, and he was not the only one.

 It was a cyclical rather than constant affair, but seemed only to become stronger for that, and the time and distance that cooled the affections of other vampires for their lovers served only to make them forget the other’s flaws and allow their desire to recharge, perpetually rekindled from embers like an emotionally fraught phoenix.

“What would you do, Lestat?” Armand had eventually demanded of him, not knowing what else to do. Give me something to imitate, his childlike face seemed to beg, his expression hungry.

“You’re asking me?” Lestat asked, seeming stunned, though he soon recovered himself, stretching back as though he were about to impart some deep and profound truth, a relationship oracle. “Well, perhaps start by talking to him. Tell him what he means to you, and tell him how much you want him with you…”

Armand looked at Lestat for a long time, brow furrowed. “I asked what *you* would do!” he insisted, frustrated. “Not the generic, newspaper relationship columnist’s response”

“Burn down Marius’ house, insult Daniel’s sartorial choices and drag him to Disney Land ” they both turned to face Louis, whom they had all but forgotten the presence of, as involved in his book as he had appeared to be for the past few hours.

“Are you helping or hurting, Louis? Helping or hurting?” Lestat growled at his paramour, who gave one of his unnervingly elegant single shouldered shrugs.

“Am I wrong?” Louis turned his page, still apparently as absorbed in the works of Nietzsche as he was the conversation. “My friend, nobody has managed to work out how Lestat gets away with half what he does, I wouldn’t suggest trying it for yourself.” he smiled with a deep seated fondness that rekindled Armand’s envy anew. “One Lestat in the world is more than enough. I suggest that you find someone else to instruct you in the ways of romance” .

Armand nodded at this truth, defeated. It wasn’t lessons in romance that he needed. It was lessons in humanity, a trait that both his hosts seemed to possess beyond anything Armand could really ever understand. He hadn’t the internal compass that they seemed to have retained from their mortal days, no intuition when it came to the elusive art of being a person.


End file.
